COEUR d’ALENE — You’ve got to start somewhere.

And for the North Idaho College volleyball team, it was a pretty good one to its new venture into the Northwest Athletic Conference’s East Region.

Halle Hess and Brooke Bell had 14 kills each and former Lake City High standout Brittany Gay had 35 assists and six kills in the Cardinals’ 25-23, 25-13, 25-16 win over the Columbia Basin Hawks of Pasco, Wash., in the Cardinals’ East Region opener on Wednesday at Christianson Gymnasium.

“A win is a win, so I’m happy,” third-year NIC coach Kelsey Stanley said. “Brittany (Gay) and Brooke (Bell), when they’re out there, the energy is fun. We’ve still got a long way to go to be honest. I was happy with the win, but would have liked to have seen more in the way of confidence and energy from the girls on the court. But that will come with everything else.”

NIC moved from the Scenic West Athletic Conference to the regional-friendly NWAC this season, playing against schools that are a little closer in distance.

“It was an awesome crowd tonight,” Stanley said. “I was very happy with the turnout. To be honest, it was one of the better crowds we’ve had.”

Zuri Meehan had 21 digs, Hess seven digs and Bell two blocks for NIC (6-9), which travels to Moses Lake to face Big Bend on Friday.

Kyrsten Whitmore had seven kills for Columbia Basin (7-11, 1-1), which hosts Centralia today.

“I think we’ve got to worry about ourselves and not so much about other teams,” Stanley said. “We’re our own worst enemy right now. Until we can fix that, then we can start looking elsewhere. Right now, we’ve got to make our errors less and just go from there.”

Julie Staffler and Kelsie Murray had five kills each for NIC.

“We’ve just got to work on playing together as a team,” Stanley said. “Being scrappy and just attacking everything that comes to them and just being smart about it.”

In front of an estimated 500 fans, NIC put things away in the third set to finish off the match.

“It (the crowd) just brings a lot of energy and helps us when we get into some ruts,” Gay said. “It helps bring us right back. Just the entire environment really helps us.”

Gay, who also plays softball at NIC, was the starter at setter last year.

“We knew the competition level was going to be different,” Gay said. “But we were excited to see how we were going to come out and compete because we’ve only played SWAC (Scenic West Athletic Conference) opponents so far. Just coming out and seeing what they’re going to be doing and what we can do, it was exciting.”

After Wednesday’s match, only Spokane, NIC and Wenatchee Valley, Walla Walla and Blue Mountain are unbeaten in conference play.

“I see us being in the top of the conference,” Gay said. “I really think we’re going to be the team to beat this year.”

Brooke Swanson had nine assists for Columbia Basin.

“We were excited to come and play this match,” Columbia Basin coach Sandra Olin said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t come to play. We knew that they were going to be tough and we really didn’t do our best tonight. I personally like having NIC in the conference. When I played (as Sandra Tate, at the University of Portland), I really liked to compete and be challenged. I’m excited that they’re here. I think it’s good for us and our region. I’m looking forward to the next match and learning to compete more.”